


Poster Child Prodigy

by AlrightDarlin (WhoopsOK)



Series: The Foxhole Kits [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: American Sign Language, Families of Choice, Gen, Little Space, Mentions of non-sexual age play, POV Betsy Dobson, Personal Growth, Selectively Mute Andrew Minyard, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsOK/pseuds/AlrightDarlin
Summary: Drew speaks with his hands, which is just as well or maybe even better. [Bee,] he signs, like bumble bee.(Betsy gets to meet little Drew.)
Relationships: Betsy Dobson & Andrew Minyard
Series: The Foxhole Kits [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1288151
Comments: 30
Kudos: 132





	Poster Child Prodigy

**Author's Note:**

> I had planned a holiday special but…alas, I didn’t finish it in time. But! We have this! I’m not sure where this should fit in the series as there are some wibbly wobbly things that happen with the timeline. But I wanted Bee and Drew, so here we are! (The craft is for you, indigo_inkpot! ❤🐝)
> 
> Title from “Neptune” by Sleeping at Last (which is one of my favorite songs ever, this whole album is beautiful).

Bee doesn’t get to play with Drew, but she does get to meet him.

It is undoubtedly one of the hardest things she has ever done in her professional career.

By now, it’s not unusual for the team to talk about things that happened or the way they felt while they were in little space. There are moments where she thinks she’s spoken with the others’ little selves, but not quite directly. It almost feels like they’re peaking out at her from behind the shoulders of their big selves.

Listening to Neil talk about family like it means something good, not something that leaves scars and then leaves all together, is a beautiful thing, it really is. He talks about himself in the future tense, something miles above their conversations before. Renee used to keep knives in her pockets, but now carries a purple pacifier clip. She talks about Lulu the Elephant—and more importantly what she represents—like it means the world to her; how wonderful, how forgiving God must be to let someone like her have this. It is work, Betsy knows, accepting that you can be forced to do something without a gun to your head, but she didn’t pick up this job because it was easy.

Betsy is patient and present, shoring them up through their gentlest slope of their uphill battle.

A step, getting Matt and Allison to acknowledge that, for whatever they may have gotten in exchange, the family lives they had were not healthy or what they deserved. It comes slowly, painfully at times, but they have a family now that is solidifying around them.

A step, Seth and Dan admitting how much they _had_ missed out on having a father and somehow still manage to believe, with their whole hearts and tears in their eyes, that Wymack— _their dad_ honestly loves them.

Nicky slips up and calls Wymack daddy and doesn’t even realize it until a few minutes later. He starts to apologize before Betsy tells him he can call Wymack whatever he wants her and she will hold it, kindly in confidence, just like she does everything else. His blood relatives never have to know. Kevin stumbles over calling him dad like he’s challenging himself, challenging _her_ to say anything about it, but she just smiles and keeps listening.

Aaron and Andrew sit closer together, _sharing_ the sofa instead of building an invisible wall, setting up their stone-faced soldiers on either side. They are brothers, in every sense of the word. There are bumps and barbs, days where panic grips them by the throat even in this room, but they are together.

At one point, Andrew gets as close to completely breaking down as he ever has in front of anyone. Betsy reminds him of the present and asks him to tell her about it. She watches Aaron lay his hand in the half foot of space between them, watches Andrew fumble for it like he needs it, breathing and trembling like he’s run a marathon while Aaron cries, “ _I’m here, you’re safe, **we’re** safe, I promise, I’m here for good._”

It fills her heart to bursting when Andrew looks over at him, awake and present, open and vulnerable, and grits out, “ _I know_.”

They leave and Betsy takes the half-hour before her next session to laugh into her hands and then let that turn into crying, because sometimes it really hits her how much they’ve gone through to get to her. Sometimes, it hits her how hard they’ve been working and that, yeah, she does this job for a reason, for at the _very_ least ten damn good reasons. She calls Wymack to suggest a little night. Then they talk about cooking shows for the last fifteen minutes while she holds cool napkins under her eyes.

That session, she believes, is what sets her up to meet Drew, actually.

They have a private session a few days later and Andrew hasn’t spoken, not since acknowledging her greeting and check in. It doesn’t feel like defiant silence, nor like he’s trapped somewhere and can’t get to her yet, just contemplative. She quietly drinks her hot chocolate while he thinks.

Andrew is looking out the window when he finally speaks up. “…Bee?”

Betsy pauses at his tone, unable to place it as anything other than…well, he sounds _shy._ Of all the things Andrew has been in this room, shy has never been one. She doesn’t let her confusion show on her face. “Yes, Andrew?”

For a moment, Andrew moves like he’s going to Sign something, but smoothly catches himself, lets his hand fall back open over the edge of the sofa. She mourns the disconnect for a moment, but then he finds the words for her anyway. He talks about what he did over the weekend, the innocuous little moments spent with the Foxes. He talks about movie night with Seth and Neil, he talks about sparring with Aaron and Matt. He talks about being too overstimulated for more than that, so he and Kevin read quietly together while the others went roller skating, sending them brightly colored selfies. He talks about _liking_ that.

“Bee,” he says, sounding juvenile and shocked. “Bee, I have _friends._ ”

Over a decade of having patients touch her heart is the only thing that keeps her from crying on the spot. She smiles, bright and honest even if her throat stings a little with how happy she is. “I’m very happy to hear that, Andrew. Not only that you have friends, but that you can acknowledge it, too. That is a very big step.”

Andrew nods, shortly, struggling she can see, but still moving onwards and upwards. There’s a light to his eyes now, a warmth, not just the occasional flash of glinting metal. It is a wonderful look on him and she thinks she couldn’t be prouder.

Then he’s still talking.

“Can you. I’m—” Andrew clenches his jaw and takes a breath. “My name is Drew. With my… With _you._ ”

Betsy has heard the significance of this name from several teammates and doesn’t take it lightly. She _does_ take it though, willing to concede that professional boundary to him if he’s willing to ask it of her. “Ok, Drew. Thank you so much for telling me. That was very brave and I’m proud of you.”

The shift that moves through him then is foreign to her, the sheepish shrug of someone who isn’t normally told they’ve done anything worth being proud of. Or, at the very least, not being told and accepting it. She smiles at him and he stops just short of wiggling in place and Betsy lets him look away without comment.

Today, Betsy doesn’t cry, but she does spend the evening with Abby, a glass of wine, and a transparently easy to follow Hallmark movie.

*

The next time Drew shows up in her office, she’s working on cleaning up her desktop over some low-level Beethoven playing off her radio.

It’s always organized, really, but there are dozens of things that she really, _really_ has no reason to keep, but hasn’t been able to make herself delete. She’s hovering over the recycling bin with the agenda for one of last year’s all-staff meetings when Andrew materializes in her doorway.

“Oh, hello Drew,” she greets, setting the document back on her desktop. She tilts her head when she only gets a wave in response. “Are you okay?”

Drew nods and Betsy remembers her readings on selective mutism and sensory overload.

“I don’t have any sessions today,” Betsy tells him. “You can come sit if you just need some quiet time.” Drew comes in, but to her surprise, he bypasses the couch to sit on the floor between her desk and the bookshelf. One of her figurines is crooked, she notices, but before she can properly feel any anxiety about it, he reaches over to nudge it back into place. He doesn’t look back to catch her smiling, casually folding his legs and leaning back against her desk. She hums at him happily, going back to decide, yeah, okay she doesn’t need the agendas from meetings she attended months ago.

The next time she looks over, Drew is holding a cat.

Betsy blinks in surprise. Drew looks peaceable, like he’s maybe a little spaced out and okay with it, body in an easy slouch except for where he’s carefully cradling a stuffed cat. “Oh! Well, who’s this?” she asks softly.

Drew glances up at her, cautiously holds it up for her to see.

Betsy smiles and reaches down to pet it gently. “A very pretty kitty!”

That makes his eyes go wide and he nods, following quickly with his hands, the movement ending like he’s going to pinch his own cheek.

“Kitty?” Betsy guesses trying the motion.

Drew nods, but repeats the Sign again. One hand rocking under his chest like a baby then plucking a whisker off his cheek. Baby-Cat. [Kitty.]

[Kitty,] she signs and smiles when he nods at her. “Thank you for teaching me that, Drew. And for letting me meet your friend!”

The happy flush that glows across his cheeks makes her heart sing.

It isn’t until she’s getting ready to go home for the evening that Betsy notices the tiny little pipe cleaner bee among her figurines, facing a pink crystal lotus. It doesn’t fit at all except for how it absolutely does. She can’t stop smiling for the whole rest of the day.

Having dinner with Wymack confirms that he is feeling similarly absurd and joyous over the progress they’ve made, the _family_ they’ve made.

*

In her private time, Betsy practices ASL.

She’s taking a class twice a week and has an app that teaches her a new phrase every day. She is signing her favorite songs and talking stiltedly with Wymack when they get together. Walking around her house, she signs:

[B-e-t-s-y.] Then, [My name is B-e-e, like bumble bee.]

[I’m proud of you. You are doing very well.]

[I’m here. You are important to me.]

[Family. Foxes. Little. Son.]

Many of these she cannot use, not yet if ever, she knows this. Still, they get familiar on her hands and she holds them there happily.

When she offers some to Andrew— [ _Of course,_ ] she Signs, because _of course_ she’d learn, [ _You Sign._ ]—he looks as blatantly shocked as she’s ever seen him. He spends the rest of the evening looking at her like she’s a revelation. It’s nearly the same way he’d woken up in their early sessions; realizing she was real and here and he wasn’t going to be able to scare her off.

Betsy doesn’t flinch under his gaze, just smiles because yes, she’s here and she won’t be scared off.

Especially since, this time around, Drew isn’t trying to make her.

*

Betsy sits at their last session feeling light even if she also feels a bit like crying.

It’s been a very long road to get here, but the Minyard’s graduation is next week. They’ve even agreed to walk after everyone decided to whine at them for the whole month leading up to it. Betsy has the invitation pinned on her fridge.

They’d had their last joint session the day before, but she isn’t surprised that Andrew requested an additional hour today.

The first half of the hour is graduation talk. Betsy will be in the audience, because of course she will. Andrew will let Nicky take pictures after for no more than ten minutes, which he has already warned Erik about. They talk about him signing a professional team and sending Betsy and the others tickets whenever they want. They talk about Neil and how he has promised to keep up his sessions with her. Betsy will not report back on him, but Andrew knows that and will not ask. The talk of the future makes him anxious, she can see that, but even that is better than complete apathy. He has an apartment that Allison and Neil are going to help him decorate. He’s going to _live_ there, not just exist in a state of waiting. His _acknowledging_ a future that he wants is something attainable reminds her, once again, that the diploma she’s got hanging up on her wall is more than worth it.

When silence lapses between them, it is a warm and heavy weight, but not an unbearable one. Betsy waits for him to speak.

Drew speaks with his hands, which is just as well or maybe even better. [Bee,] he signs, like bumble bee.

Betsy nods that she’s listening.

[I want…] his hands freeze there, wanting still something as foreign as allowing himself to admit it. [I _need_ …]

[Take your time,] she tells him and means it. He is her last session of the day, because she has to take care of herself, too. [Start as small as you have to.] She raises her eyebrows when he motions at her, not quite a point. [Me?]

[I need a new therapist,] he clarifies. [You…] He holds his hands still in thought. He looks at her head on, not a flicker of question or doubt, but like he’s challenging her once again. [You are more than that.]

It makes her throat tight, but only because it is absolutely true and the best possible outcome. Though the place he’s in is much less dark than it was years ago, he’s not far enough out of the woods to wander alone. And maybe he never will be, but he’s not on his back anymore. He’s up and sober, walking in the light; he’ll need someone there guiding him until his map is more firmly drawn. Betsy will be there for him, in any possible way he allows her, but he will need another doctor in his new hometown. One who can look after him with objectivity as a patient, not with the love of a family member in their heart.

Betsy is proud of him for seeing that. She smiles so he knows it.

[I need to speak now,] she tells him and waits for him to nod. “You are not getting rid of me, Drew. If you’d like, I’d love to help you find a new therapist. I was actually going to suggest it.”

Drew nods, the minute tension he’d been holding in his shoulder relaxing. “Bee.”

“Honey,” Bee replies and laughs at the look on his face.

It surprises her, truly, beyond what even he normally does, when he reaches out a hand for her. The motion is falsely casual, just him letting his hand fall into the space between them. Even if he looks shy, he also looks young and trusting, lets her see that like she’s earned the expression.

Drew’s fingers are a little cool in hers when takes his hand with no hesitation does nothing to hide the warmth and tears in her eyes. They sign thank you at each other at almost the exact same moment and Betsy squeezes his hand.

In all the ways that count she never—ever, ever, ever, ever—lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading…I am Signing: I love you! I am proud of you! Good luck!
> 
> Probably not my strongest writing, but I enjoyed it and I hope you did, too! At any rate, I’d love to hear what you thought.
> 
> May 2020 greet you kindly!


End file.
